It seems that Spyker and GM have finally reached a deal. After initial rumors that the deal is off, Reuters reports of signs that GM has agreed to sell the Saab brand to automaker Spyker of The Netherlands for a total of US$ 400 million.
Over the years General Motors (GM) has become China’s second largest automaker, mainly through a 50:50 Joint Venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). This is an achievement for which GM should command a lot of respect as joint ventures with Chinese partners have been known to be tricky at times. Now GM has just announced that it will not only sell parts of its Indian operations to SAIC, but that it would also transfer an additional 1 % of the stock in the joint venture to them, thus raising their stake to 51 %. After this move, GM China has finally become Chinese, and this is may be a whole different ball game. To some degree the move is understandable as GM has been desperate for cash recently, but strategically the deal does not make an awful lot of sense (unless you’re SAIC, of course).
After months of uncertainty and intensive negotiations, GM has announced this week that it will decide a 55 percent stake in it’s European Opel unit to a consortium of the Austrian-Canadian automotive supply conglomerate Magna and its Russian investment partner, Sberbank. 35 % of the shares will remain with GM, and another 10 % will be held by Opel’s employees. Magna’s majority shareholder, Frank Stronach, is coming full circle with this – he started a garage business in Toronto in 1957 manufacturing sun visor brackets for GM and then turned his company into one of the largest players in the automotive world. Having already experienced some difficulties in the Russian and Canadian markets, it’ll be interesting to see how Magna will be able to integrate so many different cultures under its wing – an Austrian-Canadian mothership, a Russian investor, an American shareholder and all of that in a German setting, competing on world markets. First, however, the parties to the agreement have to sign on the dotted line which is not expected to happen before German elections.